July 10 (Bloomberg) -- About 200 worshippers forced their way into one of Urumqi’s largest mosques, defying an order to stay home as authorities sought to maintain calm in the Chinese city after the worst ethnic violence in 60 years.

Three days of rioting and communal clashes between Muslim Uighurs and ethnic Chinese in the capital of the westernmost province of Xinjiang forced President Hu Jintao to cut short his trip to the Group of Eight summit in Italy. At least 25,000 security personnel were deployed to stop the ethnic clashes.

There was no sermon and after about 10 minutes of prayers the service was cut short and worshippers began to file out. On a typical Friday, the holiest day of the week in Islam, as many as 3,000 people pray at the mosque, overflowing into the courtyard and out of the gates, said its director Haji Bekele.

“We were afraid something horrible would happen if too many people gathered in one place,” said Bekele, director of the mosque for five years. “Protecting the worshippers was our only motivation,” he said, adding that this was the first time he could remember the mosque closing on a Friday.

The Chinese military is enforcing an uneasy truce in the capital of China’s westernmost territory, separating ethnic Hans and Uighurs from each other after July 5 clashes left at least 156 people dead and more than 800 injured.

At 2:00 p.m., about 200 worshippers who’d been gathering in the Tartar Mosque’s courtyard forced their way through the entrance. A handwritten sign on the mosque’s gates declaring today’s closure was ripped off.

Two dozen police officers were lined up outside the mosque gates, standing guard in black uniform and full riot gear.

The Urumqi government denied it had ordered mosques to close or telling Muslims, which make up about a fifth of the city’s 2.4 million residents, to pray at home today.

The closure was recommended by the mosques themselves, each one managed by a different committee of religious elders, Bekele said. A dozen of the largest mosques in the Urumqi neighborhood of Erdaoqiao met yesterday and decided they would close today because of the safety concerns, said Bekele, 59.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Liu in Shanghai at jliu42@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 10, 2009 03:29 EDT